Treasure Ship
The small piece of metal didn’t seem like much.
Rodney Grambo and Pat Murphy found it on the bottom of the ocean,
about 120 feet below the surface, at a shipwreck 40-some miles from
Wrightsville Beach. It was brass, not gold or silver. Not especially
valuable.
Grambo is 57. He’s been a treasure hunter all of his adult life. It’s
the only job he’s had since graduating from high school in 1979.
He’s dived on dozens of wrecks and collected thousands of coins.
“I am one of the luckiest guys at finding gold; I’ve got the
highest gold count of anybody that’s still in this business that
does it like I do, shallow water diving,” he says. “They always
tease me about it and ask me, ‘Why are you so good at finding
gold?’ I say because silver gets my hands dirty.”
He was diving one of the wrecks of the famous 1715 Fleet
off Fort Pierce, Florida, back in 1988, when he had a day all
treasure hunters dream of.
“I found a pile of almost 1,000 gold coins,” he says. “That
day was good.”
A little piece of brass could hardly compare to that. But then
the crew of the Blue Water Rose took a closer look and saw the one
word that changed everything.
Pulaski.
Top: A passenger luggage disk found by divers from the Blue Water Rose confirmed
the provenance or the authenticity of the site as the wreck of the Pulaski, which sank
off the North Carolina coast in July 1838 when its boilers exploded. Above: “Explosion
of the Steam Packet Pulaski,” an illustration from “Steamboat Disasters & Railroad
Accidents in the United States” by S.A. Howland. Near and far right: Coins recovered
from the wreck. Right: Jimmy Gadomski uses a metal detector to find treasure. The
three tanks allow for more time on the bottom.
COINS COURTESY OF NUMISMATIC GUARANTY CORPORATION. DIVER PHOTO COURTESY OF BLUE WATER VENTURES.
ALLISON POTTER
28
WBM july 2018